It was a topsy-turvy Monday morning in the channel yesterday as five senior-level channel executives’ switched roles, while one CEO told the world he’s not retiring anytime soon.
The biggest move came from the long time Cisco senior VP Karl Meulema, who has held several positions of note at the networking power. Meulema is leaving his role at senior vice president of global strategy and operations for Cisco rival Avaya. Meulema will be the new global services and partners vice president for Avaya. This is a big loss for Cisco as Meulema was the architect of several successful channel programs such its services plan, the Smart Care services and the Lifecycle Solutions programs.
Silicon valley neighbour HP finally filled the vacant enterprise channel chief job by promoting Terry Richardson, who was the vice president of storage channels at HP. The position was left open since Frank Rouch left for VMware in June.
Hard drive marker Western Digital Corp. announced that Steve Milligan will become its new CEO starting January 2 of next year. Milligan takes over for John Coyne, who is retiring at the end of this year. Milligan, 49, is currently president of Western Digital and will retain the title of president when he becomes CEO. Milligan will also be appointed to the Western Digital board of directors.
Tom Pardun, chairman of the board for WD, said the company is grateful to John Coyne for his many years of dedication and strong leadership. “He and his team have strategically positioned the company at the center of the storage industry, as a consistently profitable market and technology leader well positioned to address the tremendous opportunities in the changing digital world. We are fortunate to have another accomplished and experienced leader in Steve Milligan, ready to lead the company at this exciting time,” Pardun said.
Coyne, 63, has served as CEO of WD since January 2007 and spent the vast majority of a career in the electronics industry, joining WD in 1983. Under his leadership, WD became the world’s largest maker of hard drives rivaled only be Seagate.
Joe Tucci staying
While one CEO retires another decides to stay on. Joe Tucci confirmed that he will be sticking around until 2015 at least as the boss of EMC Corp. When Tucci first arrived at EMC just after the turn of the century, the company posted losses of more than $600 million and was trying to integrate Data General, its high profile acquisition. After a brief stint as president and COO, Tucci became full time CEO in January 2001 and he went to work on turning the company around. Since then, EMC posted record revenues and acquired even more high profile vendors such as Legato, Dantz, Documentum, VMware and Smarts.
On the solution provider front, Michael Rapp, the current vice president of software sales at En Pointe Technologies has been officially promoted to president.
Bob Din will still be the CEO, but relinquishes the president’s office.
After 19 years as President and CEO, Din told En Pointe stakeholders that he is building out a new management team to prepare for the expansive growth to come.
Finally, Ray Villareal a long time exective at WebEx is the new Americas boss at LifeSize Communications. Villereal will have the title of VP Americas and global services replacing Joe Vitalone who left early this year for ShoreTel.
